Chicago -- In a way, the Warriors have to be somewhat thankful that the officials were so determined to make Friday's game about their three-man crew.

The incessant whistles turned the game into a disjointed mess and took some of the attention off just how badly the Warriors played during their 103-87 loss to Chicago in front of the 111th consecutive sellout crowd at the United Center.

"I wish we had an excuse," Warriors head coach Mark Jackson said. "We got outworked, we didn't have the right mind-set to start the game, and it just snowballed from there.

"That wasn't Warriors basketball. I'm disappointed in the way we played."

The Warriors (26-16) never led, trailed by as many as 26 points and got manhandled. The Bulls (26-16) beat the Warriors 56-37 on the boards, 30-6 on second-chance points and 36-22 on points in the paint.

The Warriors shot 34.6 percent from the field, but it was difficult to tell if that had more to do with Chicago's stingy defense or the officiating. The Warriors rushed into and took any briefly open shot, but they might have also been racing to attempt shots before another whistle was blown.

The officials stopped the action going in either direction as much as possible for any seemingly innocuous incident. They called ticky-tack fouls, questionable traveling violations and anything else they could think of to upset the fluidity of the game.

Only 11 of the teams' 26 combined turnovers were lost balls or bad passes. The other 15 were traveling violations, illegal screens or offensive charges. Traveling was called three times during one 33-second stretch, and it took only 46 seconds to whistle four illegal screens during a third-quarter span.

"It wasn't disjointed in the first quarter, and that's when they made their move and won the game," said Warriors power forward David Lee, who was 1-for-7 for two points as Chicago jumped out to a 31-13 first-quarter lead.

Lee finished with 23 points on 6-of-15 shooting and six rebounds a night after snapping an NBA-record 15-year drought by becoming the Warriors' first All-Star selection since Latrell Sprewell in 1997.

Stephen Curry had 21 points on 7-of-18 shooting to go along with one rebound and one assist. Only Jeremy Tyler, who played the game's final 5:18 in garbage time, made half of his shots (1-for-2) among the 13 Warriors who got playing time.

"They outworked us, across the board," Jackson said. "With rebounding and aggressive cuts, they got what they wanted. We didn't respond until it was too late. It was a disappointing performance by us. It was just a bad performance."

The Warriors finished the toughest 11-game stretch of their season at 5-6. During the span, the Warriors played the Western Conference's other top five teams and only one team with a losing record (New Orleans, which had won six of seven before playing the Warriors).

The combined record of the Warriors' opponents during this portion of the slate was 303-166 (.646) heading into Friday's games. The game in Chicago represented the end of that gantlet and the start of a stretch with eight of the next 10 games on the road.

Chicago had three players put up double-doubles, with Jimmy Butler recording 16 points and 12 rebounds, Carlos Boozer going for 15 and 13, and Joakim Noah adding 14 and 16. Kirk Hinrich scored a game-high 25 points to give the Bulls their 40th consecutive victory when reaching the 100-point mark.

"Joakim's energy, that rubs off on the other four guys," Butler said. "When you see him rebounding and yelling, you go in and rebound, so you can yell."

The Bulls earned the right to do a lot of yelling, but it was hard to hear over all the whistles.

Saturday's game

Who: Warriors (26-16) vs. Bucks (22-19)

Where: Milwaukee

When: 5:30 p.m.

TV/Radio: CSNBA/680

Of note: This will mark the Warriors' first game in Milwaukee since the teams swapped Andrew Bogut and Monta Ellis in a five-player deal just before the trade deadline last season. ... The Bucks lost 113-108 at Cleveland on Friday, falling to 12-4 on the season when scoring 100 points. ... Ersan Ilyasova has scored 84 points in his past three games. ... Larry Sanders, the NBA leader in blocked shots, has rejected at least one shot in 28 consecutive games.